RAF Feltwell

RAF Feltwell sits on the Norfolk fens about ten miles west of Thetford, built in the mid-1930s expansion of the Royal Air Force and brought into use in 1937. From the outbreak of war it was a heavy-bomber station in No. 3 Group, flying the twin-engined Vickers Wellington — first with No. 37 and No. 57 Squadrons, and then most enduringly with No. 75 (New Zealand) Squadron, which made Feltwell its wartime home and carried the New Zealand contribution to Bomber Command through some of the campaign’s hardest years.

The station’s role shifted more than once. The Australian and New Zealand Ventura squadrons, No. 464 (RAAF) and No. 487 (RNZAF), passed through on daylight light-bomber work, while No. 192 Squadron flew Halifaxes on the secret radio-countermeasures duties that grew into the electronic war over Germany. Later in the conflict a Lancaster Finishing School operated here, converting crews onto the four-engined heavy that dominated the night offensive.

Unlike many wartime fields, Feltwell never closed. After 1945 it became an officer-training station, then a front-line site of the Cold War when Thor intermediate-range ballistic missiles were based here between 1958 and 1963. The airfield remains in use today under the United States Air Force, a rare survivor among the bomber stations of East Anglia.